


The Ways of Love and Lovemaking

by TheLostPocket



Category: Pellinor - Alison Croggon
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drama & Romance, F/M, First Time, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Miscarriage, Nightmares, Psychological Trauma, Rape Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:33:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27175934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLostPocket/pseuds/TheLostPocket
Summary: shortly after the quest is over, and Maerad is settling in well at Innail, finally finding a life she loves. But as her relationship with Cadvan progresses, old traumas from her childhood are stirred up and threaten to derail her happiness.
Relationships: Cadvan of Lirigon/Maerad of Pellinor
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12





	1. Conversations

Maerad woke up to the sound of rain against her window. The first rainfall of springtime. She rolled over blissfully; a month at Innail had not lessened the pleasure of a warm bed, all her own. It was still early, so she lolled around for some time, curling her toes in the warm sheets, watching the rain pour down the diamond-cut glass. Every sorry trek through storm and wind, soaked to the bone on Imi – every miserable meal of salted meat and nuts on horseback – flashed through her mind. She pressed into the mattress a little more, basking in the joys of safety and warmth on a rainy day. 

But, so it seemed, not peace – not for long. 

“Maerad – perfect, you’re awake.” Maerad’s door was thrown open and in swept Silvia. At a glance Maerad saw that she was dressed for action, which in this case meant a rough-woven lavender dress and a slightly mucky apron. A red scarf bound her hair back, a sure sign that she meant business. 

“Just,” Maerad elbowed her way to sitting, smiling placidly. 

“A day for remaining indoors,” Silvia nodded at the window “Mirylln and Handul are in the outer villages today and won’t be back until the rain eases. I wonder, would you like to learn a little about Making?” 

The mischievous twinkle in Silvia’s eye had Maerad out of bed in an instant. And so it was that at mid-morning Hekibel dropped into the kitchen to find both Silvia and Maerad covered to the elbows in flour, the table littered with half-kneaded dough and an immense vat of something sweet-smelling boiling over the hearth. Silvia was merrily chatting away, shaping a small ball of dough in each hand one moment, then swivelling to stir the large pot, then poking at the fire critically – she seemed to be everywhere at once. Maerad, however, was not getting along so well. Her hair was frizzy from the heat, breaking loose from its bounds in every direction. Her fingers were lost within lumpy gobules of dough. She had an annoyed, determined look about her. 

“I see I’ve come just in time,” was all Hekibel said before swooping into the fray. Her lively presence was welcome to Maerad, but only served to reinforce her feeling of incompetence. On the road she had learnt how to pull together a nutritious, if modest, stew and how to cook meat safely, but that was about it. The intricacies of bread-making – the reliance on instinct to feel out the dough, the multiple risings, the not-too-sticky-not-too-dry – were lost on Maerad, but Hekibel had an instinct for it. The jam bubbling away was beyond Maerad’s ken, too, and Silvia had wisely relegated Maerad to stoning and cutting. 

Within seconds, Hekibel had fixed Maerad’s dough and was helping Silvia form the buns with strong, competent hands. With a pang, Maerad looked down at her maimed hand. It had been long since she’d gotten used to her fingers simply not being there, but every now and again she just. . . wished. 

“I notice Saliman is looking very happy around Innail these days, Hekibel,” Silvia said slyly “I am so happy for you both. Saliman has been alone for. . . far too long.” 

Hekibel’s face was hidden from Maerad by her great curtain of hair, but her happiness was clear. 

“Saliman is very kind,” she said, then quite suddenly grinned “and very handsome.” 

“That he is,” Silvia laughed “you should have seen him the first time he arrived in Innail! He looked like a herald of the sun itself, dressed head-to-toe in red and gold, and his smile brightest of all.” For a moment, her hands paused. “He arrived with Ilan, First Bard of Turbansk. He was a great friend to Innail.” 

From the look on Silvia’s face, Maerad could guess what happened to Ilan. Many great bards had fallen in the sacking of the city – Saliman and Hem had been lucky to escape – and many Bards keenly felt the hole left by Turbansk’s destruction. But Hekibel’s face became clouded for a different reason. 

“He is so very learned,” she said, looking firmly at the dough she was kneading “and kind – I love him, but I fear we are very different in many ways.”

“That need not be a bad thing,” Silvia said gently “where there is love and respect.” 

“Saliman loves me,” Hekibel smiled “but sometimes – sometimes I am rather jealous of you and Cadvan, Maerad.” 

Maerad blinked in astonishment. She very rarely gave thought to how her relationship with Cadvan seemed to others; to her, it was the most natural thing in the world. She had trusted him from the first moment she saw him, and quickly grown to love him, first as a friend then as something more. And although they loved one another, they still found cause for disagreement as much as laughter. 

“Jealous?” Maerad repeated.

“You’re so. . .” Hekibel seemed to struggle for the right words “comfortable together. You just fit, like a puzzle. I knew it the first moment I saw you, and I still see it. I wonder if Saliman and I will ever be so comfortable together.”

“Cadvan and I have travelled without other company for a long while,” Maerad snorted “you, too, would have no cause for shyness around Saliman if he had seen you in such positions as Cadvan and I have seen one another. Once, when I was glamoured as a young boy, Cadvan caught me trying to figure out how to urinate.” Maerad confessed and recounted the story, and self-mortifying others, amidst Silvia and Hekibel’s shrieks of laugher. “And so, our easiness around one another is not so much comfort as an utter lack of dignity.”

“And remember you and Saliman are still so new together,” Silvia cut in “you have much to learn about one another. There is no rush. And with the coming hot season there will be much to do, and many celebrations planned – dances, and crop blessings, harvest rites, and the Midsummer Meet!”

“And springtime at Innail is so beautiful.” Maerad added. It was around this time of year that Maerad first arrived at Innail, and the sight of blossoms on the trees in Innail’s courtyards would forever be one with a special place in her heart. She and Cadvan were increasingly dallying on their way about to School together, forgoing timeliness for the sake of beauty and fine company. 

“It is,” Hekibel gratefully said “and the food! Saliman told me you kept a fine table here at Innail, but I had no idea – even the bread!” she held up her hunk of dough, wafting Maerad with flour. “And our dwelling is so beautiful.”

“’Our’?” Maerad scrunched her eyebrows together. “Do you not have your own rooms? Surely, there is enough space at Innail.” Since the Battle of Innail, many of the homes previously filled by Bards and soldiers had been left empty. Even in Silvia and Malgorn’s house, where she and Cadvan were both still staying, there were several empty guest rooms. 

“We choose to stay together,” Hekibel said, her chin high. Maerad sensed that she was missing something. 

“It’s perfectly alright,” Silvia, too, was using a very deliberate tone “the ways of the heart are known and embraced here at Innail, just as with you and Cadvan.” 

“Yes, of course. But,” Maerad was feeling more and more confused “Cadvan and I have separate rooms.” There would be no room for another, Maerad thought, in her cosy bed. Where would he sleep? On the floor? On the chair? That would be ridiculous. 

Hekibel and Silvia shared a glance. The bread lay forgotten on the table. 

“Maerad,” Silvia said “you are familiar with the ways of life, are you not? That lovers may choose to lie together, as an expression of their love?” 

For a moment, Maerad closed her eyes. She remembered hot breath on her face, rough hands pressing into her body and scratching at her knees. Her own heart racing in her chest in terror. Blind panic. The soldier at Gilman’s Cot hadn’t gotten far, thanks to her then untamed magery, but the memory still caused an unpleasant visceral reaction. She shuddered. 

“Yes.” Maerad said grimly. The screams of less fortunate women echoed in her ears. She had been unable to help them, hadn’t even wanted to, huddled away from danger. In the light of day, they always had the same defeated look on their beaten faces. The women at Gilman’s Cot swiftly learned to not fight back. She turned her eyes back to Silvia. “There is no love in it.” 

Silvia was alarmed into speechlessness. Hekibel was also alarmed, but with the opposite effect. 

“Surely, you and Cadvan,” Hekibel said “you have known one another so long – and all that time alone on the road together. And now – the way he looks at you, like you – ” like you hung the stars, Hekibel had been about to say, but Maerad’s expression halted her. 

“Cadvan would never,” Maerad said coldly. She was shocked they were even discussing it. Silvia and Hekibel shared another glance. Maerad was starting to feel like the butt of a joke and let out her frustrations by pounding at her dough. 

“Cadvan has had lovers in the past,” Silvia said gently. Maerad stilled – even the blood in her veins felt like it had halted and gone cold. “When two people who love one another come together, it’s beautiful,” Silvia continued “and often very pleasurable.” There was a flush on her cheeks. Maerad did not believe her. 

“Cadvan has never tried – he had never expressed the desire to – does not wish. . .” Maerad felt plunged in doubt. Could it be possible? Hekibel laughed not unkindly. 

“Trust me Maerad,” she said “Cavdan _does_ want it –”

“Hekibel!” Silvia admonished. 

“– and he has most certainly thought about joining with you in that way. He is only a man, after all, for all his great Bardliness,” here, Hekibel waved her hand flippantly. Since travelling back from the Hollow Lands she had remained distinctly unintimidated by Cadvan’s high standing “and, you forget, I often notice things others do not. He certainly thinks about you with desire.” If Hekibel thought this might lift Maerad from her fear she was sorely wrong. Maerad went extremely pale and looked briefly as if she was about to vomit. 

“Hekibel, I think that is quite enough.” Silvia’s voice was very low. Hekibel glanced at her, then Maerad, and a contrite expression overtook her face. She opened her mouth to speak but was interrupted by the kitchen doors banging open yet again. The very subject of their conversation charged in in something of a panic, his hair a nest of disarray, cloak falling off one shoulder. 

“Silvia – Maerad, there you are!” Cadvan’s rush did not prevent him from throwing hasty, cordial smiles to the Kitchen’s occupants “And Hekibel, too – good morn, good morn – Maerad, I see you’re turning your hand to one of Innail’s great strengths. Silvia will guide you better than I could ever hope to.” He grinned. Maerad offered a wan smile but could not meet his eye – this did not escape his notice “I must be off; I am late to a meeting with the First Circle!” 

“Cast a glance into a mirror on your way!” begged Silvia to his already retreating back “You look like you’ve just fallen down a hill – and do not touch the sweet buns!” 

“An accurate representation of how I feel. What does Malgorn put in that cursed wine of his?” Cadvan laughed. His hand skimmed over the dark glazed bun he had been reaching for, instead picking up a meat pastry and stuffing it directly into his mouth. He winked at Maerad, tossed out a muffled farewell to all, and dashed from the kitchen just as swiftly as he had entered it. 

“He is so very handsome,” Hekibel said in almost a pleading tone. 

“Yes, he is,” Maerad replied. Finally, a small smile graced her lips.

“And I am sure he must be very strong,” Hekibel continued pointedly “for all his swooping cloaks and stuffy scholar’s robes, I can see a well-muscled man from leagues off.” Maerad again agreed. Once while travelling she had attempted to lift Cadvan’s sword, Arnost; it was so heavy she could barely bring it to hip-height. That he could bear it even at the height of their desperation, when they were both under-fed and thin, was all the more impressive. But Cadvan’s physical strength was not in any great excess of any other warrior-Bards, Saliman included – in fact, Maerad did not doubt that the immense Saliman could bend rock with his hands, should he wish it. She spoke her thoughts. 

“Oh, yes, Saliman is very strong,” Hekibel’s face flushed prettily “he lifts me as if I were little more than a sack of grain.” Maerad could tell by her expression that this was a good thing, although she didn’t understand why Saliman would need to lift her aside from injury or sickness. And Hekibel was sturdy; in their short time together, she had built up an impression in Maerad’s mind of being somehow relentless, with an indefatigable spirit. She was not a Bard, and so had no lengthened life, no Gift with which to defend herself and others, no last resort if things fell awry – yet she had followed Saliman to the very doorstep of the Dark and stood fast. Maerad’s estimation of her was extremely high. 

“I have always known Saliman to be a man of great passion and joy,” Silvia said “and after the fall of Turbansk, we all feared for him. To lose one’s home is no easy thing. . . but I am glad he has found one to share his joys and sorrows.” 

Finally, a topic which Maerad could understand – she leant her hearty agreements. From there, conversation turned to talk of the tasks ahead. Innail had come out the war relatively lightly, yet still there were parts of the School that were ruins. Walls and houses were being rebuilt, and the hardest-hit areas of the Fesse slowly being returned to function. Several months after the Battle of Innail, refugees from the outlying villages were still quartered in the Lower Circles, still clutching what few possessions they had retained, waiting for their homes to be re-erected. 

“The stone from these parts was once much famed,” Silvia said “for its durability and beauty. The oldest parts of Innail were built with it, and they still shine white as snow in the sun. It is particularly sought after to line canals, as it does not absorb water as some other stones do, and if polished and treated with certain ointments it can be made to look like unflawed marble.” The mining and cutting of this stone, Silvia continued, would revive a near-lost form of masonry and provide much needed business in the villages. 

Malgorn’s plans for Innail were ambitious, but where his skills of wartime leadership had faltered at the Battle of Innail, his level-headedness and practicality won out in discussions of architecture and fair government. He was even considering opening a competition for the design of the new public music hall, which once lay in the Outer Circles and had been utterly demolished by the Landrost and his army. Maerad had teased Cadvan that he might enter, and try his hand at Making; Cadvan had demurred, citing the fear that he might cause general outrage by forgetting to put in a public toilet. 

“And then what hero would I be to the people of Innail?” he had joked. 

However, such pediments were held in hope for the future. Sickness and poverty, for so long strangers to the Fesse of Innail, lingered still in the wake of the Dark. Maerad helped bring food and medicine to those in need when she could, but felt hampered by her inability to help in any real way. Often, she could find Hem hot on Nelac’s heels in the Houses of Healing, learning his trade as ravenously as he ate his meals. It warmed her heart to see him so happily occupied. He had changed much since he had been pulled, skin and bones, from the mouth of danger over a year ago. For a start, he had grown taller than Maerad and, although Maerad suspected he would not grow so large as Saliman, he could very nearly look Cadvan evenly in the eye. 

Accompanied by such thoughts, Maerad spent most of the day under Silvia and Hekibel’s tutelage. They made honeyed buns which came out the oven plump and golden, filling the hot air with a sweet smell; they made gallons of peach and elderflower jam, poured into crystalline jars and stacked up on the side table in a glimmering jewel-like mountain; they made an immense cauldron of rich, smooth soup the colour of cream which, partnered with a delicately herbed loaf of bread, made up one of Innail’s specialities; and they also saw to the usual roasted meats, cheeses, pickles and fruits for the midday and evening meals. Overall, when she was finally dismissed to change before dinner, Maerad felt demoralised from her lack of progress and utterly exhausted. She made a slouching beeline to the bathhouses. 

Sunk up to her chin in steaming water, Maerad’s mind was free to wander once again. She hummed to herself. Perhaps she would bring her lyre to dinner. The water was so soothing, like a warm embrace over every inch of her body. Her missing fingers throbbed – too proud to mention anything to Silvia, Maerad had pushed through the pain all afternoon. She would have to ask Cadvan to massage it again – he had a particular way of rubbing it which always eased any pain she felt where her fingers should have been. And, she thought to herself, it was a wonderful excuse to have Cadvan touch her. . .

Cadvan. Maerad’s conversation with Silvia and Hekibel floated to the forefront of her mind. What had Hekibel been about to say? The way he looks at you, like you. . . like she what? Maerad recalled the looks of lust plastered on Gilman’s soldiers’ faces at the drunken evenings in the Great Hall. They would leer at the unlucky girls serving drinks, lurch at them, rub their hands against them. When Maerad was ten, she had overheard a girl be raped. Hanna. She had been hardly much older than Maerad, but even so young she was pretty. Despite the lack of food she had begun to develop early; at 13 she looked closer to womanhood than many of the girls of 20. She had caught the attention of the Captain of the guard and that was that. She had had no magery to protect her, nor any significant physical strength, nor any family to ward off her attacker. The Captain cornered her one day in the cowbyre and raped her while Maerad had hidden under a stack of hay, unseen and unseeing. Maerad still remembered the hollow look that had haunted Hanna’s eyes in the weeks afterwards. A strange swelling begun to take hold of her body, like someone was slowly pumping her full of air, and she became frequently sick. Maerad had not understood at the time. She had wondered how Hanna might possibly be getting fat on such small food rations as they were permitted. Her body became practically rotund; her feet and hands swelled, too, and great blue veins stood up on her legs. Then, all of a sudden, in mid-winter Hanna’s body was found by the well, stiff and cold as stone, a twisted grimace forever frozen on her face. A rotting heap of pink and white and red innards, already plagued with flies, was strewn over her legs and feet. Everyone else had surveyed the event with grim calmness, as if it were inevitable, but for months afterwards Maerad had kept a length of rope stashed under her straw mattress with which to measure herself, terrified that she too would develop the strange swelling sickness. 

Maerad realised she was curled up in a tense ball, hands clawing at her stomach. The bathwater had gone cold. Soon the bell would ring for dinner; she hurried back to her room, dressed quickly, and on her way out rushed straight into Cadvan.

“Maerad!” he greeted her warmly, reaching out to clasp her hand in his “There you are! Come, we must hurry – I hear there was a promising new cook involved in our evening meal, so we cannot be late!” Pulling her by the hand, they trotted all the way to the dining room, where everyone was already seated. Silvia looked at Maerad sharply upon entrance, but only offered her the usual greeting. Cadvan immediately headed towards Saliman, picking up a conversation clearly only just absented, but Maerad broke from him, instead going to sit by Hem. It was generally noted that this move placed Maerad and Cadvan as far away as the intimate company allowed, and beyond easy viewing of one another. Maerad had been inseparable from Cadvan for as long as Silvia and Malgorn had known her; even upon her first arrival at Innail as a skeletal, suspicious girl Maerad had trailed Cadvan like a shadow. Since then she had grown in confidence, but they still both favoured sitting close-by at mealtimes. This abstraction was quite the change. 

Throughout dinner Cadvan regularly shot Maerad confused glances, but found that whenever he attempted to catch her eye she was always caught up with something Hem was saying, or feeding scraps to Irc. His silent appeals to Silvia, Hekibel, or anyone else around the table were equally unsatisfying, being met with either closed-off stoniness or bafflement equal to his own. Eventually, as plates were being scraped clean and people were beginning to lean back, rubbing their stomachs contentedly, Cadvan had had enough. 

_Maerad_ , Cadvan’s voice dropped into her mind like a leaf from a tree, _is all well?_

_I am well_ , she responded. Cadvan frowned at her round-about answer. She was not lying, but nor had she exactly answered his question. 

_You are discontent_ , he continued determinedly, _will you tell me what ails you?_

_I suffer from bad memories_ , she replied truthfully, _they haunt me._

It would not be accurate to say that this fuelled Cadvan’s concern, nor that it reassured him – more, his worry remained, only shifted. He had not forgotten – would never forget – her torment on the journey to the Hollow Lands, how she had trembled and clutched at him, blindfolded against horrors only she could see. He wished to reach out to her, to reassure her, but she was beyond his reach. 

_Is it the dead?_

_No_ , she said, _they are my own memories. My past._

Cadvan frowned. He knew some about her life before they met, had seen it in her mind. So much of her life was punctuated with pain and suffering.

_Tell me, my love._

But here, unexpectedly, Maerad withdrew. Cadvan blinked. Across the table, she was chatting as merrily as ever with Hem, who was becoming pink-cheeked from Malgorn’s deceptively delicate wine. Only one who knew her extremely well might have noticed the tension in her shoulders. Cadvan turned back to Saliman – but his gaze was caught along the way by Silvia. Had she been watching him? 

All is not well with Maerad, her gentle voice said, her eyes fixed on him, I fear her past still shadows her happiness, and tells her there is doom where only lies joy. I fear she has been. . . mistreated. 

Cadvan pressed her further, but Silvia would say no more. He felt as if everyone were out to frustrate him – first Maerad, now Silvia, both dangling foreboding before his nose but leaving him with no satisfaction. He stabbed at his slice of apple pie. What could be wrong? Had Maerad had some revelation, or had a new memory surfaced of her childhood? Those memories were often bittersweet, and it would explain why she was proving impossible to disentangle from Hem. But how was Silvia involved? And mistreated how? He knew Maerad had been a slave, and suffered many years of neglect, but Silvia seemed to be hinting at something different. 

A chilling thought occurred to him. Their period of separation was one Cadvan endeavoured not to think about. Those days when he had believed Maerad dead, when he had thought all lost, and darkness all but victorious, had been the blackest of his life. Their reunion brought much joy, but with it knowledge of Maerad’s own sufferings. He had asked her nothing about her time with Arkan, and she rarely offered anything about it. He got the sense that she hardly understood it herself, and feared those memories. I fear she has been. . . misused. Had harm come by her that she had not confessed? What abuses had she been subject to at the hands of the Winterking?

He conspired to question Maerad more thoroughly during their walk after dinner. This had become a habitual pleasure of theirs, but once more he found himself confounded. Hem was becoming increasingly tipsy, and both Saliman and Maerad feared his jolliness would soon spill over into something a little messier. 

“Perhaps the juniper wine was slightly stronger than I had anticipated,” Malgorn said doubtfully, seeing Hem’s slightly blank smile from across the table “he’s hardly had three glasses and he looks about ready to keel over.” Malgorn, Cadvan and Saliman surveyed Hem. For all his bravery and competence, it was easy to forget that he was still a child and easily victim to ailments that the three older Bards had overtaken many decades ago. Such as drunkenness. 

Hem let out a small burp. This seemed to be a signal to Saliman, who leapt to his feet and calmly hurried around the room. 

“When will you learn, Hem,” Saliman shook his head fondly “such wines must be drunk slowly, and not trusted on taste alone. Especially if crafted by the First Bard of Innail.” Hem had nothing to say to that other than to look blearily up at Saliman. “Come, let’s get you to bed. Or perhaps throwing you in the fountain first might help?” 

“I will take him,” Maerad’s hands were already clutched around Hem’s shoulders “you stay. Continue your conversation – I was going to retire soon anyway.” 

Saliman raised an eyebrow but did not argue. Releasing Hem to her care, he watched the two gently limp from the room, Hem pressed close to Maerad’s side, she whispering encouragement. The door swung shut on their backs, and Cadvan realised he had been hoping she would glance back at him, perhaps shooting him a small smile or an eye roll to let him know all was well. She did not. 

Saliman returned to his seat with a dry comment about the nature of siblings, to which there was a general rumble of amusement. Cadvan did not hear it. He was now certain there was something amiss but could not place what it might be. Nothing had happened between them – only last night he had kissed her at her door, her thrumming heart echoing his own. What bliss it was! And yet now she practically fled from the room. And, he felt for certain, from him. 

Cadvan’s brooding dampened the merry atmosphere of the room, and very soon afterwards Saliman and Hekibel made their exit. Malgorn and Silvia departed after a politely refused suggestion of music, and Cadvan was left alone in the semi-darkness. 

Maerad’s mind was hardly more settled than Cadvan’s, but she was open to distraction. Hem was staying with Saliman and Hekibel in a house not far from the Houses of Healing, some little way across the School. Such a journey was typically short; however, Hem was proving difficult. Maerad had to employ all her sisterly authority – such as it was – to wheedle, persuade, command, and pry him through the halls. He was not so much uncooperative as distractible – every little thing of even the vaguest interest was cause for rapture. Maerad had to physically drag him away when a small flower poking through a crack in a damaged wall brought Hem near tears. 

“Where is Irc?” Hem mumbled, spinning wildly on the spot with his head to the sky “Where is that bragging crow?” 

“He didn’t make it so far as you,” Maerad said with amusement “he was asleep before Silvia brought out the apple pie. He will be sad to have missed it. But that’s what he gets for sneaking sips of wine.” 

“He did that?” Hem’s eyes flew to hers “Ha! I knew it. He always denies it, but I can tell. I can –” he was interrupted by another burp, then shook his head like a dog. Maerad supressed a laugh. 

“You are hardly any better,” she dragged him forwards again. Up ahead, lights were shining from Saliman’s house. “I am ashamed to be associated with you.” She placed a firm kiss on his cheek to puncture her point. 

She settled him in bed with minimal incident, feeding sips of water into his mouth, taking off his shoes, kissing his brow and departing. On the way out, Maerad passed Saliman and Hekibel. They stopped talking suddenly when they saw her, their troubled expressions hastily clearing. 

“How is the monkey?” Saliman asked. Maerad gave a brief condition report, with an expected diagnosis of a headache in the morning, and bade them farewell. She did not see the glance the two shared behind her back, or hear their rapid recommencing conversation once she was out of sight. 

The night was very beautiful, so Maerad took a dawdling route through the School, allowing her feet to guide her. Despite the damage, the School remained as beautiful as her first sighting of it, if somewhat less intimidating. The buildings were regularly dotted with little courtyards, which sometimes held trees, or fountains, or lovers’ benches. In the summertime, these spaces were filled with light and music, with students taking their learning into the open, or resting with friends. Sitting in a garden, eating a pear, Maerad recited fondly. And thus, her thoughts once more turned to Cadvan. . . 

She had ignored him all evening. She had found it quite impossible to look at him for more than a moment – anything more drew up a strange bubbling dread. Memories had floated to Maread’s mind’s eye at irregular intervals throughout dinner, like mud swirling up from the bottom of a clear stream; memories of a little girl crying, a strange wet slapping noise, and the smell of warm hay. 

Cadvan would be waiting for her. Maerad’s footfalls slowed, and she briefly considered sleeping on a bench in one of the courtyards. Something within her told her this was a delicate issue, one she instinctively shied away from. But the lure of her bed quickly overtook her cowardice, and she bent her feet firmly back towards Silvia and Malgorn’s house. In the end, she needn’t have worried – she passed the entire way to her bedroom unimpeded, letting out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding as she latched her door shut. She made to get straight into bed, fumbling at her dress buttons as she went, but was arrested by a movement in the corner of her eye. She turned. 

And saw herself. 

There were no open mirrors in her room – in fact, the only one she had seen at Innail was in the bath-houses, a great silvery thing that gave back a clear image of the viewer from crown to heel. Maerad had never looked in it. When Silvia came by to help her dress she brought with her a small hand-held mirror rimmed in brass and engraved with vines, flowers, and a fat little bird that sat where the handle met the frame. Maerad was always more fascinated by the craftsmanship than her own reflection. No, this was not a mirror, but her reflection in the glass of the window. The glimmer of the candle in Maerad’s room bounced off the diamond-cut panes. Outside, the thick night foiled any other counter-light, casting Mearad’s own figure into a strange warbling imitation. 

Maerad stepped closer. Her reflection rippled in response, expanding and thinning. She gazed at herself, feeling as if she was looking at a stranger. This woman seemed of no particular height, pale, with sharp, tense shoulders. The dips in her face were cast into deep shadow, making her look ghoulish in the dappled glass. Frowning lips, a pale scar across one eyebrow, thin cheeks. And, most noticeably, a great slump of hair so black that it melded utterly with the night beyond the window. The hair fell in fat tufts behind her shoulders, ending in exhausted straggles down past her waist. Maerad reached behind her and clutched at it – when had it gotten so long? At Gilman’s Cot she had cut it herself, keeping it to just below her shoulders where she might easily keep it back from her face but not get it caught in anything. But in recent times a haircut had hardly been a priority. 

She turned away from the strange echo in the window, frowning still. The warbled night-time reflection had revealed nothing of Silvia’s warmth or kindness, nothing of Hekibel’s lush womanhood or innate vitality. Her reflection had just looked. . . tired. 

Maerad lay on the bed and closed her eyes against the world.


	2. Nightmares

Cold air brushed against Maerad’s skin. Her shoulder and hip pressed against something hard and slightly bumpy. She took a breath, smelling the stench of filthy bodies and stale urine, and knew where she was before she opened her eyes. The slave dormitory at Gilman’s Cot. An irrational shudder of fear went through her. She’d been dreaming of escape – a beautiful place called Innail, and dear friends, and a brother. But, as so often happened upon waking from a dream, it all seemed so very obviously unreal. Bards? Magery? Love and friendship – kindness? Such things were all beyond Maerad’s grasp; it was her destiny to slowly rot away under the shadow of the mountain, not to live out her days in Light and comfort. Saviour of Annar? Fire Lily of Edil-Amarandh? She almost snorted aloud. She could not have come up with a more arrogant persona for herself if she’d tried. And yet some bitterness stopped her from laughing at herself altogether. A face stood out from her dream, wanting to be seen, but it slipped at the fringes of her memory tauntingly. A scarred face, but not an ugly one. A much-loved face. Did it have blue eyes? Or perhaps grey? What shape was the mouth? She could not even recall if it was a man or a woman – perhaps a man? She struggled, straining her mind, but could not summon an image, nor could she think of their name. She felt as if she had lost something very important, the same way she might feel if she misplaced her lyre. Feeling very cold, Maerad shuffled, knowing that another day’s labour was waiting for her with the dawn. 

In the large room full of snoring bodies, something else shuffled. Feet. Maerad froze. Still caught in the dream, she sent inwards for herself as Maerad of Pellinor would to gather her magery. But she was not a Bard. She was nothing, and found nothing aside from fear in her mind. Her heart hammered in her chest. The feet padded closer. She knew with utter certainty that they were headed for her. She strained to think of something to do. She had no weapons and no bodily strength that might prove effective against Gilman’s heavy thugs. 

Call for help, a voice inside her called. 

No one will help me here, Maerad responded desperately, I have no one. No one will help me here. And yet the voice would not desist, filling her mind until all she wanted to do was scream and cry and beg, to call names she didn’t recognise and hide behind the protection of gleaming white walls she had never seen before. She opened her mouth, not knowing what she was going to do – 

A hand grabbed her hip, forcing her onto her front. Just as quickly as the urge to scream rose in her, she found she was incapable of noise – her face was pressed into the ground. All she could do was shudder in terror, pinned against the straw. Another hand followed the first, pressing her head harder. A body, thick and heavy, pressed along the length of hers, crushing her. Something poked into her leg. A blade? Or something worse? And still she could do nothing but struggle for breath, her eyes wide. Like I’ve been charmed. But there were no charms at Gilman’s Cot. Only cruel men and crushed girls and fear. 

A hot breath brushed against her cheek. Finally, a small whimper broke free from her lips. 

Call for help. Scream. Scream until your lungs bleed. Do not stop screaming. Scream – 

“Hmmm,” a familiar voice said in her ear “a quiet one. Good girl.” A hand ran up her leg, pulling her tattered dress with it, and Maerad began to struggle. She didn’t know what was happening – what was he going to do – but some instinct in her screamed to her to get out, to escape. That it would be terrible. 

“Please,” Maerad squeaked. A knee wedged between hers, forcing her legs open. “Please stop! What are you doing? I don’t want this! Stop!” Scream. Scream. Scream. Scream! But for what? Who would come to her aid? Who did she know? Desperately, her mind reeled off words, names she had no faces for, clutching at anything that might save her: Cadvan, Hem, Silvia, Malgorn, Saliman, Hekibel, Nelac, Indik, Camphis, Dernhil, Nim, Darsor, Imi, Keru. . .

“Shhhhhh,” the voice rumbled again “my dear Maerad. Don’t you recognise me? Don’t you love me?”

Maerad strained to see behind her. The body shifted slightly, and a face came into view. She felt as if she had been plunged into the water trough. It was the face from her dream, much-abused and much-loved. 

“Cadvan,” the name fell from her lips easily, as if she had said it a thousand times. Cadvan smiled back, his eyes gentle. 

“Don’t make a sound.” oh, how soft his voice was! It was like thunder rolling over the sky. But Maerad was not listening from some far-off safe place – she was in the fury of the storm. She struggled again, and his hand pressed harder into her neck. He shifted back and away from her view. The rest of her dress was yanked to her armpits. 

“Cadvan, stop,” she cried “you’re hurting me. What are you doing?” 

“When two people who love one another come together, it’s beautiful and often very pleasurable.” Another voice, a woman’s, spoke, but Maerad could see nothing beyond the other side of her cot. 

“Silvia,” she gasped, not knowing what she said. Who was Silvia? Could she help Maerad? 

“I love you,” Cadvan murmured. Fingers dig into the fleshy skin of her buttocks, her hips. Maerad struggled but could free herself. Something firm pressed itself between her legs, splitting flesh, pushing inside her. She blinked, and there was Hanna splayed out on the ground just as Maerad had seen her last: her body twisted, still grotesquely swollen, blood-stained from the waist down, white and stiff as frost. Her blank, glassy eyes stared at Maerad, and with jolting finality Maerad knew that she would share in Hanna’s fate. Maerad’s childhood fear of the swelling-sickness overtook her, and she screamed as loud as she could, not knowing whether she was calling for help or mercy or just making incoherent noise. She slammed her forehead against the stone floor, scratched at anything she could reach with her pinned-down hands, while her whole self shook from the unrelenting force of Cadvan’s body pushing into hers. 

“Maerad!” he cried, his voice hardly audible over her own. She wanted to tell him to stop using her name, that he had no right, that he was hurting her, but all she could do was scream. Hanna’s blank stare remained fixed on Maerad like a prophesising oracle, bearing witness. Her mouth lolled open as if she, too, screamed with Maerad, for Maerad, and for herself. 

“Maerad!” 

Her whole body was shaking, crashing, like she was a stone in a box being tossed around. She felt the whole of herself, everything that made up Maerad, pour into Hanna’s eyes like water from a jug, leaving her own body empty. She was filling Hanna’s body up, becoming the gaping, bloody corpse. She was frozen, staring from unblinking eyes, her mouth lolling open. Before her a black-haired girl was spread spider-like on her front while the man atop her slammed his naked torso into hers, his face in a high flush. Dead eyes met dead eyes. Her ears rung. 

_Elednor_ , a voice called. She was drifting further away, now seeing the scene as if she were a rat on the ceiling. She could see two girls, lying beside one another, both of them Maerad. Maerad’s body splayed out beneath that of a man dressed in black, crushed, her mouth gaping open; Maerad’s body, twisted, blood-stained, swollen, frost-encrusted, a crude tangle of insides and a baby, underdeveloped and grotesque, dumped over her legs. The man’s movements became faster and as they did her being became nothing more than fear and panic and hot breath against the back of her neck, and the overwhelming smell of hay, and that awful, haunting wet squelching. 

_Elednor._

_Who is Elendor?_ The rat on the ceiling asked. 

_You are Elednor. Return. Remember._

_Yes, she thought, I am Elednor. I am the Fire Lily. Who calls me?_

_Elednor!_

Maerad’s eyes shot open, and she found she was no longer on the floor in Gilman’s Cot, but on a bed. The room – her room – looked as if a battle had taken place within it. Objects were on the floor, chairs and furniture broken, and the window on the far wall was shattered, with several panes smashed on the floor below. 

And Maerad was not the room’s sole occupant. 

A small crowd was gathered in various states of dress and action. Malgorn, clad in an inside-out tunic, was pressed against the wall with a look of horror on his face, one hand clutched to his heaving chest. Saliman was half-way across the room, his bare chest visible from the folds of a richly patterned dressing gown. The magelight in his hand cast his face in an unforgiving array of light and shadow. His expression was as grim as Maerad had ever seen it. Closest of all, crouched on his knees beside her bed, hands on her shoulders, was Cadvan. His face was very pale, the scars on his cheek standing out in harsh contrast in the low light. There was a rapidly-forming bruise on one of his eyes. He looked utterly, fiercely terrified. 

All of this Maerad took in in a second. Her body felt sticky, somehow hot and cold at the same time. Her heart raced in her chest. The air in the room shook strangely, as if it still vibrated from a rung gong or drums. Her dream still flashed before her eyes. Without thinking, she shook Cadvan’s hands from her shoulders and shuffled further away from him. Everyone watched her warily. 

“You were having a nightmare.” Cadvan said calmly. The alarm in his expression had dissolved into blank coolness. “We could not wake you.” He did not try to touch her again, but nor did he move further away. 

“You were yelling so loudly we thought you were being attacked,” Saliman said. He did not relax from where he stood, nor ease his frown. By the door, Malgorn rubbed his wrist protectively. “I could hear you in my mind from across the School. What were you dreaming of?” 

Maerad’s body shook. A nightmare. It had been a nightmare, that’s all. She was not at Gilman’s Cot. She was not being attacked. Hanna was not here. She opened her mouth, but no words came out. Her throat felt sore. 

“Maerad –” 

The door banged open. Everyone jumped – Cadvan’s arm flew out, the words for white fire on his lips – Maerad pressed further against the wall. But they need not have feared – in charged Silvia, laden with a basket of medical supplies. Hem was hot on her feels. 

“Maerad!” Hem darted straight for his sister, ignoring Saliman’s warnings, but pulled up short at her bed. His eyes were fixed on her legs. Maerad looked down and realised that the stickiness she felt was a thin layer of blood smudged from thigh to shin, staining the sheets red where her hips had been. 

_It’s just your period_ , a rational part of Maerad’s mind whispered, _just your monthly cycle_. But still Hanna flashed in her mind’s eye. She began to hyperventilate. Cadvan reached out to soothe her, worry once more returning to his face. 

“No!” she yelled, her voice very loud in the silent room. She had slipped into the Speech. “Stay back!” 

Cadvan’s face darkened. He did as he was commanded, easing away from her bed, but with her command Silvia and Hem sprung into action. Ignoring the bloody sheets, Hem slowly crawled onto the bed. Maerad grasped him in a tight embrace without hesitation, allowing him to stroke her hair and face. Where he touched, warmth spread, and her breathing eased. Silvia turned to the room, taking Malgorn’s wrist gently in her hands. 

Cadvan’s eyes did not stray from Maerad, who was curled up in a frail little ball in Hem’s arms. He noted her fearful, compulsive glances his way. Saliman also noted this and suggested he and Cadvan take their leave. 

“Let us give the Healers their space,” he said firmly. Cadvan felt very much like arguing, but could see he would be no good here. Hem was doing a valiant job of calming Maerad, who was already making the favourable progression from panic-fuelled violence to quiet weeping. He was also doing a suspiciously good job of hiding Maerad from Cadvan’s line of sight. As Saliman man-handled him from the room, Cadvan felt a jolt of jealousy. Since he had known her Maerad had always been able to find comfort with him – he had always been one she turned to. To be so unceremoniously cast from that position of favour, even for her brother, and in such a situation, stung. 

Maerad was conflicted. A part of her yearned for the comfort of Cadvan’s presence, to be enfolded in his arms and huddle there until she was no longer afraid. But even the thought brought fresh tremors down her spine. The breath of dream-Cadvan still washed over her neck. She was scared, but she didn’t know what of. Surely not Cadvan? 

Silvia stepped lightly towards Maerad, her face bright and kind as if nothing were amiss. The door closed behind the men on their way out. 

“There, there, my sweet girl,” Silvia crooned, cupping Maerad’s cheek in her hand “shall we get you cleaned up? There we go. . .” Maerad allowed herself to be lifted to her feet. Hem watched anxiously, but Silvia’s expression did not waver. 

“Do you feel any pain?” she asked, nodding when Maerad shook her head. Ever since Ardina had looked into her at Rachida, Maerad had not suffered the once debilitating cramps that welcomed her monthly bleeding. “I think a nice warm bath is in order – don’t fret about the sheets, that can easily be fixed.”

With Silvia and Hem’s support, Maerad wobbled towards the bathhouses. Aside from tiredness, she was perfectly able to walk on her own. Yet still she clutched at her companions. Not ten minutes before she had thought she would vomit if anyone placed their hands on her, yet by the time Silvia had a bath run Maerad found it impossible to let Hem go. This proved difficult, until Hem volunteered to get into the bath with her. 

“I’m only wearing old night-clothes, they don’t even fit anymore.” He shrugged, and without preamble hopped into the hot water, fully-clothed. If it weren’t for the serious situation, Silvia might have laughed. They made a very odd pair, two fully-dressed Bards squeezed into one bubbly bathtub. 

The warm water went a long way to revive Maerad. She scrubbed a rough sponge up her legs while Silvia hummed from the side, stroking her hair. Hem steadfastly averted his eyes but never released Maerad’s free hand. Once she was clean and placid, Maerad was removed from the tub and behind a screen Silvia helped her strip from her sodden dress and into a thick night-robe.

“So silly.” Maerad muttered eventually. It was the first thing she had said since banishing Cadvan from her presence. “Letting a nightmare scare me like that. I had thought. . .” she took a deep breath “I thought I was a slave again, and that I knew no one – there were no Bards, and no Innail, only pain and death and sickness. Only Cadvan was there, but he was so. . .” here Maerad shuddered and seemed to struggle with something “. . . cruel. He was doing such horrible things. I did not – I do not – understand. And. . .and poor Hanna.”

“Who is Hanna?” 

“She is me,” Maerad said “she is what I would have become if I weren’t a Bard.” 

Silvia pressed for more, but Maerad would not utter another word on her dream or Hanna. They returned back through the halls, passing Maerad’s room quickly. Maerad peeked through the open door – then quickly looked away again. It was completely destroyed. She shuddered. She had done that in her sleep, without even realising. Since singing the Treesong, Maerad’s Gift had been much weakened, and forevermore would be much diminished without her Elidhu capabilities. Truly, she was only just learning what her true Bardic powers entailed. In any other circumstance Maerad might have been pleased at the proof of her returning power. 

The group shuffled on, through the house, to a different guest room. It was already made up – Maerad suspected Malgorn’s hasty retreat might have been involved – and she choked back yet more thanks and apologies. Silvia fetched her basket of medical supplies, doling out a strangely thick liquid from a bright blue bottle. 

“This will give a dreamless sleep,” Silvia warned “although you may also feel a little slow for a while after waking.”

“I will stay with her,” Hem said. He was not asking. Silvia nodded, kissed them both on the brow, and swept off. Before long, Hem and Maerad were asleep in one another’s arms, just as they had done so long ago, in a time before either of their memories, and as they would do again in the future, finding the impossible in one another: peace.


	3. Contemplations

For Cadvan, what remained of the night passed less placidly. Not long after he swept from Maerad’s room a volley of mind-messages had dropped into his head. It seemed the force of Maerad’s distress had not only alerted everyone in the house but thundered through the mind of everyone she knew within the School’s radius. First was Indick. 

_Cadvan_ , by the impatience in his tone, Cadvan got the sense that Indick had been hammering at mental walls for a while, _what’s amiss? I’m on my way._

Cadvan got an image of Indick bursting from his home, a blade in each hand like a Northern War Chief. 

_Peace, Indick. Maerad had a bad dream._

_A bad dream?_ Indick’s tone was incredulous. _She screamed as if she were being slaughtered._

Cadvan had no answer for that. 

_All is well here, friend. Return to bed._

_. . . you will give me answers tomorrow, Cadvan. This was no normal nightmare._

Cadvan had no argument there, so soothed the stable-master with the promise of explanations on the morn. Indick grumbled, but his mind-touch receded. Cadvan felt distant demands from other voices, like people knocking at a door, but he brushed them aside. They could find their reassurances from Saliman – Cadvan had none left. 

Saliman led Cadvan to the music room, placing him firmly in an armchair. The air was still warm from the fire of a few hours before; with a little shuffling, Saliman bought the fire back to a healthy crackle. Around the room, glasses with dregs of liqueur glinted in the firelight. A heavy shawl was half-fallen from the settee, pooling in luxuriant black-purple folds on the floor. Cadvan picked it up, rubbing it in his hands much like a distressed child might caress their favourite toy. It was Maerad’s. 

Sometime later – who knew how long? – the door opened. Silvia had come down to give her report: Maerad was calmed and in bed, with Hem attending to her. Cadvan was unsurprised that Maerad had not asked for him, but hurt nonetheless. To Silvia he merely nodded. 

“Hekibel was woken by Maerad’s distress.” Saliman said grimly.

“As was Nelac,” Silvia said. Her eyes took on a far-away look – then she blinked and looked around the room once more. “I have quietened the fuss. For now. Dear Camphis was very close to mustering the full armed forces of the Innail guards and setting them at our door.” 

“That would be just the thing,” some semblance of Saliman’s good humour filtered through in his tone, “the defensive stronghold of Innail rushing into your guest quarters – all down to Maerad having bad dream.”

“In her state, I dread to think what would have become of them. She was completely out of control; after the Treesong, I did not think she had such strength.” 

The amusement drained from Saliman’s expression. He grunted in agreement. 

“Have you reassured Hekibel?” 

Saliman’s frown deepened. “Without the clarity of a Gift she just awoke with a strong feeling of dread. I managed to convince her to stay at the house for her safety on the understanding I would be back within the hour.” Yet still Saliman cast a wary glance at Cadvan. 

“Go, my friend,” Cadvan dismissed him in a tone that entirely contrasted his black expression “there is nothing to be done here now. Reassure Hekibel that all is well.” 

Saliman knew better than to press Cadvan, and so left, exchanging a meaningful look with Silvia. She turned to face Cadvan. 

“Dearest Silvia,” he cut off what he knew she had been about to ask with a wan smile “I have no need of any food or refreshment, although I thank you for your kindness. If you wish to keep vigil with me you would be most welcome, but I fear I would be no great company.” 

Silvia peered at him. He looked twice his age, and tired, the hollows of his eyes cast into black pits by the flickering fire. She could not make out the expression in them. She grasped his hand. 

“Maerad told me of her dream.” she whispered. “She said she dreamt she was a slave once more, and that there were no Bards and no Innail.” She hesitated, then continued “She said you were there, inflicting some cruelties too horrible for her to speak of.”

Cadvan’s eyes were fixed very steadily on hers. 

“In my life I have been foolish and rash with my words, and with my actions.” he said slowly “I have made my mistakes and paid dearly for them. But may all the powers of Man and Beast and Light and Dark strike me down should I raise a hand against Maerad.”

“I know,” she squeezed his hand tighter “It’s not that – I would never think – but Cadvan, I worry – do you think it was a foredream?” 

Silvia’s eyes betrayed the extent of her fear. Fear that the war was not over, victory not secured. That their fragile sense of peace was just an illusion, and they would still lose everything. That releasing the Treesong would take with it their way of life, the Gift, the Schools, leaving all of Annar in chaos. Cadvan covered her hand with his own. 

“No, I do not think it is a foredream.” he said. “When I touched her, the force of her fear threw me against the wall – taking Malgorn with me.” He added dryly. “The only other time Maerad’s Gift has broken control like that was when I scried her, drawing painful memories to the surface. Damn near broke my neck, although I had it coming.” Absently, Cadvan rubbed the back of his neck. “No, I do not think it was a foredream. I think it was a memory.” 

Silvia gasped, then was silent. There seemed nothing more to say – Cadvan certainly seemed disinclined to say any more. Silvia’s mind replayed the conversation from earlier in the day, her brow furrowing further and further, until finally she retreated to her own chambers. 

With some relief, Cadvan watched the door shut behind her. Finally alone, he pulled out the scroll of parchment he had been hiding. He had seen it half-unravelled on Maerad’s bedroom floor, presumably disrupted from its resting place by the force of her nightmare. _Like the rest of us_ , Cadvan though dully. He had picked it up, meaning to place it on her desk where it would not become trampled, but had recognised the handwriting. It was Dernhil’s. Without thinking, but with a great feeling of underhandedness, he had hidden the parchment in his trouser pocket before anyone had noticed. 

He unravelled it, once more sighting that fine, familiar hand, and read: 

_Drunk with beauty, I tore down  
Armfuls of blossom.   
How desolate the marred sky!_

And below, a scrawled note: _Maerad, my deepest apologies for my foolishness. Your steadfast friend, Dernhil._ These words were formed slightly less carefully, as if the hand that had written it was unsteady. Maerad had told Cadvan of her short altercation with Dernhil on the day they departed Innail – her sense of fear then, and her increasing sense of regret. Cadvan had then secretly thought that Maerad might have easily fallen in love with Dernhil had her life been different – and he thought it again now, with no small sense of irony. In a world in which the Dark had not risen – in which Pellinor had not fallen, and Maerad had grown up basking in the love and education that was her birth-right – what might have happened? Cadvan had no doubt she and Dernhil would have met, Pellinor being so close to Innail. Perhaps Dernhil might even have chosen to settle at Pellinor rather than Innail, the former being the more highly famed School. Yes, Maerad and Dernhil would most certainly have met – and would have had the full grace of time to fall in love. And, Cadvan realised with grim shock, he and Maerad would likely have not. Oh, yes, they would certainly also have met; before the sacking, Cadvan’s travels had driven him to Pellinor with loose regularity, every few years or so. But, restless in his chase for redemption, Cadvan could not recall staying for more than a few days. 

For a split second, Cadvan had a vision of how things might have been. The Great Hall of Pellinor in full glory, light shining through the immense stained-glass windows. A quartet of people stood on a raised dais; two men, one taller than the other, with matching grins; and two women, both in stately robe with long, dark hair. The older woman was talking, offering a warm welcome to the guests assembled; this was Milana, First Bard of Pellinor. Beside Milana, Cadvan recognised her daughter, Maerad of Pellinor, who smiled serenely, a lyre in hand. As Cadvan watched her, Maerad’s eyes turned to the left of the dais. Cadvan’s followed her gaze, and there stood his dear friend Dernhil, clad in Pellinor robe, smiling. They shared a long look full of budding love, unaware that they were observed, and Cadvan felt a strange pang in his stomach. 

Was that the life that might have been? 

_But it is not the life that is_ , he reminded himself, fate has dealt cruelties that cannot be taken back. Cadvan felt no jealousy towards this imagined Dernhil – only sadness. It seemed an irony almost too sharp to bear that Cadvan had slowly fallen in love with the woman Dernhil had loved almost upon meeting; as if the past cruelties he had inflicted upon his friend in life were not enough. Had the whole pendulum of Dernhil’s life swung him towards that moment – towards dying for love of a woman, a woman who would come to be joined in love by his one-time greatest rival? If the Dark had not risen, might Cadvan have found himself at rivalry with Dernhil again? 

_Nelac had always said that he and I were more similar than I would allow myself to see_ , Cadvan remembered with a huff of amusement. At the time such comparison had been insupportable to Cadvan – he, Cadvan of Lirigon, similar to a mere poet? He, who had no equal in all of this School or any other, of a like to the quiet Bard from Gent? Now, Cadvan saw it for the great compliment it was. Dernhil had been a greater man than Cadvan in every way that mattered. It seemed fitting that Dernhil had loved Maerad first, far before Cadvan had caught on. Whatever force that had bound the three of them together in such bittersweet union had a cruel sense of humour, even as Cadvan had to admit that it was also not without mercy. For did not he love her and she him? Were they not happy, even if in another life Maerad might also have been happy with another? 

Cadvan looked again at the _enryu_ , re-reading it, clutching compulsively one moment at thoughts of Maerad, the next at memories of his dear friend. In his other hand he gripped Maerad’s shawl. The smell of it seemed as much an imprint of her as Dernhil’s handwriting on the page. Cadvan’s head spun and would not cease; he sank ever deeper into his thoughts, and so he remained until the morning, unable to sleep. 

Sofi entered the music room backwards, her arms laden with supplies to gather the abandoned glasses and plates from the evening before. Even though she had been helping run the First Bard’s house since their guests had arrived a month ago, she still felt timid navigating the halls and rooms. She was much more comfortable in the kitchen. Silvia was helping her improve her cooking skills for when she returned to the main School kitchens and she was comfortable there, with the smell of fresh bread and quiet work. But when she navigated the house, she was forever terrified she was going to bump into someone important. Like one of the Bards of the First Circle, or Malgorn, the First Bard. Or Saliman, the immense dark-skinned Bard from Turbansk. Or – Light protect her – the Maid of Innail herself. Sofi shuddered at the thought. Once, she had seen her coming from the bathhouses and had been so overcome with awe and intimidation that she stood, frozen in the shadows, until the Maid’s footsteps had disappeared around the corner. 

Sofi absently turned to the little table beside the door, placing the two small glasses there on a tray ready to be taken away. The people here were kind, placid folk, not at all like the bawdy drinkers from her home village. In fact, she didn’t think she had ever seen a Bard gone with wine. She scanned the rest of the room for glasses – and practically screamed when she saw she was not alone. A man glowered from a chair in the corner, draped in a large purple shawl which didn’t quite cover his bare chest. Everything about him seemed dangerous, from the slouching jut of his shoulders, to the way the gloom sank around him like spilled wine seeping into fabric; but it was his face, half-hidden in deep shadow, that scared Sofi more than anything. The side illuminated by the dawn light was marred with a great scar that ran below his eye and across his cheek, standing up slightly from his skin. The one eye visible was dark blue, like the sea in a storm. The entire socket was dappled with a furious purple-and-black bruise, and the white of the eye was almost entirely red. For a moment, Sofi felt certain that this man was a Hull come to destroy the heart of Innail. Her tray clattered to the floor. 

The man’s eyes flashed to hers, bringing his face fully into the sun; and suddenly he was no Hull, but Lord Cadvan of Lirigon, great friend of the First Bard, learned Reader and defender of the Light. He smiled gently at her, as if he understood. 

“Ah! So I am cast from the comforts of my brooding!” he said cheerily, rising. “Just as well, it has been indulged much too long this night. Here,” he crouched at her feet, picking up the tray. One of the tiny glasses had escaped damage, but the other had a large white crack down the side. Cadvan placed his hand over it, muttering. Sofi blinked and when he rose, tray in hand, the two glasses shone as good as new. “Silvia would never forgive me if I broke her best glasses.” 

Sofi stared at him for a long second before she realised he was holding the tray out for her. She took it quickly but still found herself unable to move or speak – but it was unnecessary. With another small smile, Cadvan eased from the room in a ripple of dark cloth and mustiness. 

Once Cadvan was in the corridor, he shed his merriment, falling once more into that grim stillness of face that had so startled the maid. If he sent out his hearing he could sense Maerad in one of the upper rooms, hear her breath ease through her lips as she slept. It was a sound he had become so very familiar with over the last year. She liked to sleep on her side, with blankets pulled to her chin even in the summertime, and sometimes snored in much the same way a small cat might snore. It was an image he had become very familiar with over their year of chasing the Treesong. 

Cadvan stilled. Without him realising, his feet had led him towards an unoccupied room in the guest quarters. Only it was not unoccupied. He knew without being told that this was where Maerad now slept.

 _She needs you_ , something told him, but he hesitated. What if his Knowing was becoming muddled with his hopes? She had not desired his presence last night, and Hem would be with her. They protected one another like citadel guard dogs. Hem alone would be a vicious force to contend with; if Maerad did not wish to see him no earthly or Bardic power could help him get his way. Cadvan remembered the look on the young girl’s face in the music room. 

“Well, at least pull yourself together,” Cadvan muttered to himself, and turned away from the door. 

Maerad awoke in confusion. Why was the light coming in from such an angle? The pillow felt strange, and the blankets were too light. Why was her head so fuzzy? And what was that tickling her face?

She peeled her eyes open and instantly saw dark head of hair. She shot up – but it was only Hem, snoring softly into the pillow. Her body was wrapped awkwardly around his; he had grown far too tall for such an embrace. She realised the pillow and blankets felt strange because she had none – in his sleep, Hem had cocooned himself in all the bedding, leaving Maerad with nothing more than Silvia’s borrowed nightdress to cover her. 

Silvia’s borrowed nightdress. The events of last night came rushing back through Maerad’s sluggish brain. The nightmare. Her room – Maerad winced – what she had done to her room. Cadvan. 

Separated from her night-terror by medicinally-induced sleep, Maerad felt nothing but longing for Cadvan. She could not say why she had pushed him away when even in so doing she had wanted to pull him closer – it had not been in her control. In the light of day she felt very childish for allowing memories long gone to creep into reality. Yet the image of dream-Cadvan forced her to wonder if the past really was in the past. Was that truly what Hekibel and Silvia meant when they discussed the pleasures of love? Malgorn and Saliman, although fine warriors both, were so gentle. Surely, they would not – 

There was a knock at the door. 

“Maerad?” came Cadvan’s voice. He sounded uncharacteristically timid, as if he was unsure of his welcome. Maerad experienced a rush of emotions all at once, the strongest being embarrassment. How could she face him after what she had done? She feared what he might say, and wondered how she could possibly apologise. 

“Maerad, I know you are awake. May I come in?” 

Maerad realised she had been teetering on the edge of her bed, half-on and half-off. She murmured her consent, and Cadvan entered. She gasped. One eye was covered from temple to nose-ridge in a purple-red bruise. The delicate skin beneath the eye was deep black, like a smudge of charcoal, and the white of the injured eye was bright red, making his blue iris stand out grotesquely. Against his aggravated skin the silvery scars across his cheek stood out stronger than usual. 

“I have your shawl.” Cadvan said. A carefully folded purple-black sheet of fabric was in his hands – he held it out like a ceremonial cushion. “Rescued from the doom of becoming lost under Silvia’s settee.” Maerad didn’t even look at it. Her eyes were fixed on his face. 

“Did I do that?” Maerad whispered. She couldn’t remember even touching him last night, let alone administering that kind of force. 

“Yes,” Cadvan said “I got the brunt of things. At least one side of my face has remained relatively handsome. . . and black always was my colour.” This seemed to jolt Maerad from her horrified stupor. Maerad, with a sob, launched herself at him and begun to press kisses on every inch of his chest that she could reach. 

“I’m sorry,” she cried “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. . .” 

Cadvan clutched her to him, drinking in her affection, the shawl trapped between them. He muttered back, words that flowed directly from his lips without thought. As hard as she was trying to press close to him he tried to push her back, to reassure her. After a gentle tussle, he finally cupped her face in his hands and looked at her. Fresh tears dribbled down Maerad’s cheeks at the sight of his kind eyes set in a face she had damaged.

“Have you seen a healer?” 

“No,” Cadvan said, almost absently. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. Maerad placed her hand over his eye, closing her own, and whispered in the Speech: _Andhaseä, Aëlorgalen, arearën ke an na. Ke an na._

Cadvan allowed his eyes to shut. The healing words washed over him, but he felt nothing in his sinews, no prickle of magery matting broken veins – nothing beyond the innate power of the Speech. The mention of his Truename – _Aëlorgalen_ – brought about a not unpleasant twinge in his stomach. If he were forced to put the sensation into words, it might be like climbing a tree and suddenly realising that the branch you had placed all your weight on had just snapped. Just for a moment, the mind knew what the body was yet to feel and flinched as if to say: This is going to hurt. Or like walking barefoot on a path and suddenly stepping in a cold puddle. Or perhaps it was much like standing atop a very tall tower or cliff and looking down and feeling that delicious, jolting urge to jump. All of these things were very similar to the reaction brought about in Cadvan by the mention of his Truename from Maerad’s lips – and with her in his arms, so very close against his body – but all fell just short of something. 

Maerad made a frustrated noise and pulled her hand back. Aside from unwittingly stirring up certain sensations in Cadvan and exhausting herself, Maerad’s efforts had done nothing. Cadvan’s mottled eye socket was still just as vibrant as before. She had not even been able to ease the pain she sensed radiating like heat from his face. 

“This cursed weakness!” she fumed. “I had thought my strength to be returning. I want to fix the hurt I caused!”

Cadvan’s eyes softened. His thumb rubbed away a tear, but it was swiftly replaced. 

“You cry like a Lazarus Snake – one head cut off, and three more come back!” He leant forwards and kissed her cheeks. “There – perhaps that will do it. Any wise young Bard knows the best way to defeat any beast is to tame it through loving.” 

Maerad smiled faintly. “Like singing a lullaby to a stormdog.”

“Like singing a lullaby to a stormdog.” Cadvan nodded. 

“Am I a beast to you, Cadvan?” Maerad whispered. While they had chased the Treesong she had dreaded Cadvan’s fear of her. With the Treesong released and her Elidhu powers gone, she had thought her days of being feared by those she loved were over. A brilliant grin split across Cadvan’s face. 

“Yes,” he laughed “you are my very favourite beast.” And he kissed her soundly on the cheek. Despite herself, Maerad laughed, too. Just then, a loud snorting sound ripped through the air and a ruffled head appeared from below a mound of blankets. 

“UuhhhhhmmmmMM’rad?” a confused voice slurred. Roused by the noise, Hem had returned to the world of the conscious, blinking owlishly in the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear, it's all coming crashing down! Poor Maerad! Poor Cadvan!


	4. Resolutions

What started as an emotional morning for Maerad turned into a gentle thundering of activity. Hem, once he had been wrenched from his own headache, agreed to tend to Cadvan’s face. He eased the pain and prevented further bruising from forming, but Cadvan’s eye would remain a grim rainbow of colour until his body recovered at its own pace. Silvia fussed over Maerad, much to Maerad’s chagrin, and tried to lure her back into the kitchens for a day. Maerad, rubbing her still-aching finger stubs, refused and instead headed to the stables. 

She was met outside the stables by a frantic stable-boy. He skidded to a stop before her, just about avoiding a collision. Maerad recognised in him the distinct look of one who had been on the receiving end of Indick’s ire. 

“Lady Maerad of Pellinor,” he said, half in awe, and bowed clumsily. “Maid of Innail! I was just sent to fetch you and –”

“Yes, yes,” she said impatiently “what is wrong here?” she hurried around him, leaving him to trail after her as she barged into the stables. Within, it was utter chaos. Every single horse was hammering at their stall doors, kicking and whinnying with the fury of a band of wers. Stable-hands and guards were flying in every direction, doing anything and everything to calm the horses, but most were beyond approaching. Maerad heard a loud cracking, splintering sounds from a far-down stall. 

“Hold!” a loud, rumbling voice boomed. In the middle of the track between the stalls, Indick was commander of the chaos, a still force in a wave of movement. He was facing one stall with a grimace, the head of a line of three other Bards. Maerad, recognising a spell in the making, hurried forwards to lend what assistance she could. 

“Indick! What is going on?” 

“Maerad!” he roared, not bothering with a greeting “Will you get this blasted horse to calm down!” In the stall before them, Darsor kicked again at the door. Another fat crack joined the one already there. Another strong kick and the door would shatter. Maerad stepped forwards. 

_Darsor_ , she said. 

_You called for us, my friend_ , he reared, but did not kick again, _but we could not come. The wards that protect this stable acted against us._

Maerad unlatched the stall door, ignoring Indick’s warning. Around them, the chaos abruptly stilled. 

_I was plagued by a great fear I believed to be real_ , she said, once more consumed with embarrassment. Darsor pressed his nose against Maerad’s ear. 

_Dear child_ , he said. Maerad pressed her face against Darsor’s neck, holding back tears. Such unexpected tenderness from Darsor was overwhelming. 

_I am not a child_ , she responded weakly. Darsor snorted softly against her hair. 

_I am ancient beyond the years of the Dhillarearën_ , he responded proudly, _to me you are as a green leaf bud to the great oak._

Maerad blinked. When she had first met Darsor, Cadvan said he was a Lord among horses, but she had thought it a turn of phrase. 

_Keru requires reassurance_ , Darsor finally said, stepping away from her. Maerad accepted her dismissal and stepped from his stall. Indick was looking at her with an inscrutable expression. 

“You disrupt my night with such terror as I have only felt when caught in the teeth of doom,” he said sharply “you drag my stables into chaos. You owe me an explanation – and possibly a day of mucking out the stables.” 

For a long while, Maerad was silent – then she nodded, once. 

“I must see to Keru first.” 

Indick allowed her to pass, and Maerad eased into the next stall. Keru was still fretting, pawing at the ground nervously. 

_I am sorry, dear friend_ , Maerad murmured and, taking up a brush, she begun to rub Keru down, mumbling soothing words. Although Keru’s coat already gleamed, both of them found the process relaxing – for Maerad, it gave her mind something safe to focus on, and for Keru the comfort of having Maerad close by. Maerad had just managed to calm the both of them when a loud bang sounded. Maerad jumped. Cadvan, with uncharacteristic melodrama, had burst into the stables and was thundering down the dirt track to Darsor’s stall. He had been on the way to the Innail Library, hoping to find Maerad there, and was intercepted by Indick’s stable-boy. That all seemed well upon his arrival did not ease his worry. 

“ _Darsor_ ,” he said in the Speech “ _an de anilidar?_ ” 

Maerad did not hear Darsor’s response, but at Cadvan’s sharp look across at her she surmised blame at been laid at the right doorstep. He looked at her coolly, then nodded. 

“Maerad the Unpredictable,” he greeted, “I should have guessed.”

Maerad avoided his eye, picking up the brush she had dropped and continuing to groom Keru. Cadvan gazed at her for a long moment before silently doing the same with Darsor. Maerad had a sense that he remained in mind-touch with Darsor. She did not begrudge him his privacy. Working like that, together but separate, in companionable silence, reminded her of their more peaceful moments during their travels. Such times were like the moment of stillness just after a very deep breath but just before the rushing exhale, when all you could feel was lungs filled with nourishing nothingness. It was a rhythm they easily fell into, and they dallied in their respective stalls for a long while, both caught up with their own thoughts. Maerad was soothed by the familiar activity and was considering taking Keru out on an afternoon ride when something brushed her arm. 

“So,” Cadvan said “will you tell me what is wrong?” his tone was gentle but firm. “I know it was not something so simple as a nightmare.” 

“You sound very well-informed.” She muttered “Perhaps you should be telling me what is wrong.” 

Cadvan sighed, coming around to stand next to her. Maerad did not look up from Keru’s shining dappled coat. Cadvan noticed she was determinedly brushing the same spot. He wanted to reach out and still her arm, to turn her to face him so he could read what she was thinking in her eyes. He did not. 

“Silvia told me what you confessed of your dream. That you dreamt you were a slave again, of a world without Innail or Bards. And that you dreamt I was,” and here he seemed to struggle “inflicting some. . . cruelties upon you.”

“It was merely a dream,” she said “that I took to be real. It will not happen again.”

“Will it not?” 

“No.”

“How quickly you forget my ability to sort truth from lies.” He said quietly “Maerad, tell me: what is so terrible that you would attempt to hide it from me with falsehoods?” 

“It was not a falsehood,” she said sharply, finally turning to him “although I admit it was not fully truthful, either. I do not know if it will happen again – I hope not.” 

“It is more than merely your nightmare and your reaction to it.” Cadvan continued “It was not well between us at dinner. I thought at first you merely wished for time with your brother, but you fled from that room as if the Black Army itself were on your tail. You fled from me, and by the Light I can think of nothing I have done to deserve such avoidance. So, please, I beg, tell me what burdens you.” 

“I do not wish to lie with you.” Maerad spoke so quietly that Cadvan had to ask her to repeat herself twice before he could understand her. When she did, he blinked in shock and seemed at a loss for words. Maerad, her voice strengthening with her fear, continued. She recounted her short conversation with Silvia and Hekibel in the kitchen – of Hekibel and Saliman’s arrangements, of Hekibel’s strange questions, Silvia’s gentle statement about the beauty of such love and Maerad’s disbelief. She spoke of Gilman’s Cot, of Hanna, and of the guard who had tried to make her share Hanna’s fate. And, finally, Maerad spoke of the crushing, suffocating sense of dread she felt that Cadvan would expect her to take a part in such acts, that he _wanted_ it. 

“I will not allow that to be done to me.” Maerad finished firmly. Without realising, she had taken a few steps away from him; by the time she was done speaking, she was lurking at Keru’s head while Cadvan remained frozen at her rump. “Not by you – not by anyone.”

Cadvan was silent. Aside from a furious blush that had swelled on his cheeks when Maerad told him of Hekibel’s questions, he had remained very pale and very still. His expression was inscrutable. When he eventually spoke, it was in the same way that he might to calm a frightened child. 

“It is true; I do hope that, one day, you and I might lie together, and give ourselves to one another – freely.” he said carefully “But this union of love of which I dream is not the same as that of which you speak. What you have experience of is called rape, and it is nothing – nothing – to do with love.” His voice became sharp “Rape is an atrocity to love in much the same way the Black Speech is to the Speech. It takes what is not freely given, twists it and destroys it. Love does not destroy; love creates. I vow to you by all the powers that reign across this land and by the great love I bear for you that I will never inflict such a thing upon you. If we are to lie together, it will be by the free will and consent of us both. A deep expression of love.” 

Maerad listened to him closely, desperately wishing to believe him. She felt so confused. She trusted Cadvan with her life – a trust he had proved justified again and again. If he said he would do nothing until she said, she believed him. Yet words did little to rectify the lesson of hash experience. He had confessed outright that he desired such a union, that it was an articulation of his love for her and hers for him. But his frankly-stated desire was enough to make her stomach curl. 

“What if I never want to?” Maerad’s chin rose slightly. 

“Then we never shall.” Cadvan responded. His face was open, honest. “It will only be when you – we – are ready. I only ask that you allow yourself to feel. . . open to such. . . sensations as might lead to. . .” he shuffled around, clasping and unclasping his hands. Cadvan felt that what he had to say was terribly important but could not find the words. He wanted her to feel safe with him, to feel open to the love he wished to pour into her lap – but he could not figure out how to say it without scaring her. He rubbed his face, forgetting his injury, and winced. 

“Have you? Before?” Maerad asked quietly. 

“I have,” Cadvan said. In his eyes some small recollection flashed – or perhaps it was a trick of the light. 

“Was it beautiful?” _When two people who love one another come together, it’s beautiful and often very pleasurable._

“Yes.” His voice was very soft. 

“Was it pleasurable?” 

A smile. “Yes.” 

Maerad nodded. She did not know what she had been looking for in the asking, and did not know what she earned in the receiving, but still she let out a shaking breath. 

“How did you know?” 

Cadvan’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“Know what?” 

“How did you – do you – know that you want – that you desire to. . .?” Maerad’s words failed her once more. She sighed in frustration. Cadvan’s face flushed. 

“It is difficult to explain in a way you might understand; it is something often particular to an individual. . . I know because I feel a kind of wanting in my body when I am near you.” His eyes had taken on an expression Maerad could not identify, but one which she felt she had seen before. “A wish to be closer. I know because I can feel wherever you are in a room without looking, and still could if all my senses left me. I know because you appear in my dreams, like some vis–” he suddenly stopped and took a deep breath, then another. 

“Do you feel it for others too?” 

“No, I do not.” Cadvan tried very hard to not be hurt by the question. This conversation was proving challenging in ways he had not anticipated. He took a breath. “However, it is not uncommon for some to feel it for multiple people, or people they do not know well, even if they are already dedicated to another. It is sometimes just the way of things, but rarely among Bards. The call of the heart comes slower to us.”

“Is it so greatly different from kissing?” Maerad asked sadly, already knowing the answer. 

“Yes.” Cadvan said simply. He looked at her carefully. “Maerad, may I show you something? May I kiss you?”

Maerad nodded. Here, at last, was some comfortable, familiar territory. She tilted her head up to him instinctively but to her surprise it was not his lips that touched her but his hands. He stroked her hair, her cheek, her hand. He was leaning close enough that she could smell him; musk and earth and paper. If Maerad had been thinking straight she might have realised Cadvan was taking the same approach with her as he might a skittish horse; petting her, soothing her, letting her become acquainted with him. But instead, she just allowed herself to be petted, to be soothed. His knuckles stroked her cheek lightly – his nose nuzzled her ear – finally, his lips brushed against her skin, first between her brows, then her eyelids, then her lips. 

Cadvan’s kiss was gentle. He still stroked her hair, her cheek, her shoulder. It was a kiss for first lovers and early summer evenings and long, carefree days. Maerad happily leaned into his embrace. But something changed, almost too slowly to notice. Where Cadvan’s fingers touched there bloomed not relaxation, but warmth. Cadvan’s kiss was not so much pleasant as. . . exciting. Thoughtlessly, she pressed herself closer to him, their kiss deepening. She felt a warmth grow all over her, concentrating in her abdomen, like she had drunk a whole carafe of Malgorn’s fiery honey-liqueur. Her hands grasped at Cadvan’s robes, pressing to feel his warmth against hers, wishing she might get closer. . .

It was Cadvan who broke the kiss, pulling away from Maerad gently but firmly. Maerad allowed her head to fall against his chest, listening to his racing heart – it matched her own. Thus they remained until their heartbeats steadied and their breathing slowed. 

“Can you describe how that felt?” Cadvan whispered. His chin rested on the top of her head, a reassuring weight. “I assure you, although slightly self-indulgent, the question does have a broader purpose.” 

“It felt. . . warm.” Maerad spoke to Cadvan’s shirt-button, very grateful to be spared the mortification of looking at him. “Like I wanted to be closer even though we were already touching.”

“Was it pleasurable?” he imitated her earlier question slyly. Maerad snorted. 

“Yes,” she begrudgingly agreed. She felt Cadvan preen beneath her. “Alright, alright, you’ve had your fun, Cadvan of Lirigon – Cadvan the Arrogant.” She unwound from his embrace, but Cadvan allowed her only so far away as to look at her. His mouth smiled, but his eyes were grave. 

“That. . . warmth you felt.” Cadvan said, his lips twitching “That desire to get. . .closer?” He raised an eyebrow at Maerad. She nodded timidly. “I feel it too. It is a sign of desire – of wanting. One day, when you are comfortable, you may choose to follow the calling of your desire and take another step to become. . . closer to me. You may still be fearful, you may not, but the choice is yours to make.” 

“Must I – Would it happen all at once?” Maerad whispered. She felt utterly silly, like when she had first arrived at Innail; just some illiterate slave girl who had somehow stolen into an ancient citadel of learning. She struggled for the words, scared to say the wrong thing. “If it happens – might I –” 

“It need not happen all at once.” Cadvan said. “You may wake up one morning and decide you are ready. More likely, it would proceed steadily, much like your Learning. Taking a step, becoming familiar with it, then moving on to the next as your comfort expands. You would be free to linger at any step you choose for however long you choose. Most importantly, no matter the circumstances, if either of us demand a halt the other must obey immediately. No matter the circumstances.” 

Maerad let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding. She felt like something had loosened in her chest, allowing her to breathe fully for the first time since the last morning. A small smile broke onto Cadvan’s face; he leaned down for another kiss. Around them the gentle snorts and stamps of the stable filled the air, humming in Maerad’s ears like music. They did not notice Indick coming up to the stall, a question on his lips, nor did they notice the twinkle in his eye as he stopped, then made what he told himself was a tactical retreat.


	5. Plans in Motion

A couple padded along the wide street. The air smelled earthy; on the ground brown-and-red leaves piled in mulchy heaps at the sides of the road. By the next day the streets would be strewn with them once more, ready to be piled up all over again. 

“I think it will rain this evening,” Cadvan commented. He was gazing at the sky with an inscrutable expression. Maerad mirrored him. It was a black night, heavy with cloud; not even the moon could break through. The pair picked their way through the Circles by virtue of a magelight, which floated a short distance before them. By its silvery light, Cadvan looked practically ghoulish; the few delicate features on his face were confounded by shadow, while sharp lines were instead thrown into high relief. Even to Maerad, who knew him so very well, he approached intimidating. In such moments she was reminded that he was considered a great Bard, and could make a grown man flee as easily as he could make him laugh. But then he glanced down at Maerad, and he was just a man once more – just Cadvan. Such was his duality, Maerad mused. Stern and soft, young and old, cheerful and serious. Such had Maerad seen the very first hour she had known Cadvan, and such she knew now. 

Maerad murmured an agreement, and they bent their steps back towards the School. A busy day of lessons had been followed by a joyous announcement: Silvia was pregnant. The simple dinner of close friends had turned into a music- and laughter-fuelled celebration that stretched deep into the night. Malgorn was extremely averse to Maerad and Cadvan’s departure, but eventually they begged their leave and rushed gratefully from the confines of the music room. Maerad had not counted the hours as they wandered the city, but as she cast yet another glance at the sky she thought of Ilion, the Dawn Star: did it shine, unseen, behind the curtain of cloud? How long until the sky turned purple, then orange, with the rising sun, until the bakers of the city rose to warm their ovens and set their bread to rise? Before the inevitable end to this most wonderful day? Or did the moon still have a few hours of strength yet to reign over the skies?

“You have been very quiet this evening.” Cadvan commented as they crossed the courtyard before Malgorn and Silvia’s house. “Is it tiredness or restlessness that keeps you so within your head?” 

“I am thinking of Silvia.” Maerad said, not untruthfully, for Silvia had not been far from her thoughts all evening. “Of how happy I am for her, and how brave I think she must be.”

“Yes, childbirth is a dangerous ordeal,” Cadvan agreed “but I do not think she will be at any unusual risk here in Innail. Not with Hem, great apprentice to Nelac of Norloch, remaining watchful.” 

“It’s not that.” Maerad shook her head “After what happened to their daughter, to risk such pain again – to render yourself vulnerable to such agony for the sake of such love and joy. . . I think it’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen.” 

Cadvan was silent for such a while that Maerad feared she had said something foolish. She asked as much. 

“My dear Maerad,” Cadvan finally said “you remain ever a surprise to me. To hear such wisdom from the mouth that not hours ago spit wine with laughter at what must be the crudest story I have ever heard. . . !” Cadvan chuckled “Ever you remain a surprise to me.” 

“It was not so crude.” 

“Hmmm. Saliman is having a poor impact on Hekibel.”

“Saliman could have no impact on Hekibel that she would not choose to allow,” Maerad said firmly “she has no Gift, but if Bards were chosen by stubbornness alone then she would fit right in. Present company included.” 

“Oh!” Cadvan clutched at his chest, stumbling back a step. “Mighty Huntress! She shoots and her blow aims true. It cannot be denied that I, Cadvan of Lirigon, am plagued with such faults as stubbornness and arrogance and pride. But still, for all my weaknesses, I believe – I hope – I am not so very difficult to love.” 

They had made their way through the house and had come to hover outside Maerad’s bedroom door. However, Maerad did not stop. She pulled Cadvan onwards, down the corridor, around the corner, and to halt outside another door. 

“No,” she said, “you are not so very difficult to love.” And she kissed him. 

“ _Elednor?_ ” Cadvan murmured when she pulled away. 

“I have been thinking of Silvia,” Maerad repeated, her voice little more than a hum “and of bravery. I have been thinking of the ways of life, and the ways of love.” She took a breath “I want to try again.”

Cadvan remained silent, his face tense. Although their physical relationship had progressed much since the springtime, their last attempt at intercourse had left both Maerad and Cadvan slightly shaken. Neither had been in a great rush to make another attempt since, although Maerad suspected that in this instance it was Cadvan who bore the brunt of the trauma. 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes.” 

Cadvan looked at her searchingly for a moment more. Then, without a word, he grasped the handle of the door and pushed it open. The cosy room within was as familiar to Maerad as her own; Cadvan’s bedroom. It was only after much discussion that Maerad and Cadvan had established they should keep separate bedrooms, both of which might be made to accommodate two. Maerad had offered to share a room with Cadvan as a display of trust. This gesture was met with gratitude but gently refused by Cadvan, who argued it was far more important she have her own space – and her own bed – to turn to should she need it. It would not do, he had joked, to have one of them sleeping in some padded corner of the house like an adulterous spouse. Maerad had seen his point, requests were made, and a week later Maerad was sleeping in a brand-new dauntingly large two-person bed. Silvia was the soul of discretion; she obeyed Maerad and Cadvan’s requests without question. In addition, she offered friendship and the discreet lending of a medicine-book on the female body. Maerad faithfully read and re-read the whole thing, including a pointedly dog-eared section on fertility and contraceptive herbs. Once, Maerad had been so caught up in reading the little fabric-bound book that she had unwittingly sat down to breakfast with her nose still buried in its pages; Malgorn had practically choked on his tea, Cadvan had stuttered out an unintelligible stream of syllables, and Silvia had exploded into peals of laughter. 

She stepped into Cadvan’s room. He shut the door behind them, casting his hand over the handle and muttering a few words in the Speech. Among their early trials the importance of privacy to them both had become apparent, so Cadvan had grown used to adding a one-way noise muffling spell to the door. There was a brief feeling of pressure in Maerad’s head – then her ears popped and the feeling was gone. Cadvan turned back to her. 

“You may command a halt at any time,” he reminded, as he always did “I will obey.” 

Maerad nodded, then, at Cadvan’s firm look, uttered her agreement. One of the points Cadvan had been most adamant about was the necessity for clear, verbal consent: all questions must be answered in verbal or mind-touch, for the both of them. This had been difficult at first for Maerad – aside from feeling that she did not have the vocabulary to speak on how she felt, Cadvan had sometimes asked questions that made her blush from her temples to her ankles. But, as he had promised, she slowly became accustomed to his questions and learned the words with which to respond. She became accustomed to his touch on her body, on all of her body, and felt quiet joy in becoming familiar with his. 

With a sense of comfortable rhythm, they began to reacquaint that familiarity. As always, it started with a kiss. Maerad leaned into Cadvan, feeling herself melt as his touch lingered against her. His lips, his fingertips, his knuckles – all swept over her face like the brush of a feather. Maerad responded in kind, kissing his jaw and throat and the V-shaped hollow between his collarbones. These spots, she knew, were places he liked to be kissed and touched. Sure enough, a low rumble sounded from Cadvan’s chest. His hand landed on her shoulder, fiddling with the hem of her cloak, hesitating. In a rush of confidence, Maerad cast the cloak to the ground in a dramatic billow. Cadvan raised an eyebrow. 

“I told you,” Maerad said “I am sure.” It was not just bravado, although Maerad had had cause to exercise bravery during their explorations. But this time she found she was not scared. 

“But last time. . .” Cadvan muttered. In his face she recognised the fear absent from her. Maerad recalled what Nelac once said: _Cadvan is a Bard of unusually strong will. If he seeks to keep something hidden, it is near impossible to find it out_. Love had not made him different than that which he was any more than it had for Maerad. Still they disagreed and argued; still they reconciled and forgave. But, in the walls of their shared bedroom, Cadvan kept nothing hidden. He laid all of himself at her feet, simply, like it was the easiest thing he had ever done. 

So Cadvan laid his fear at her feet, asking she do what she will with it. And, as he had done to her so many times, Maerad picked it up and pressed it to her own breast. She placed a hand on his cheek, her thumb stroking his scar, and smiled. 

“Cadvan,” she murmured “you must trust me as I trust you. I am guided by my Knowing in this. Do you not trust me?” 

“Why should I trust you?” once cutting words spoken in anger slipped from Cadvan’s tongue without injury, making them both chuckle in amusement. 

“I may no longer be so great a Bard as once I was,” Maerad said “but methinks I still possess the power to bring Cadvan of Lirigon to his knees.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last non-explicit chapter, so if you'd prefer to have a soft-fade-out finish then stop here! The next one will be diving straight in to some more adult content - venture no further if you're weak of heart!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As i said at the end of the last chapter, this next chapter is an XXX continuation of the same evening, so if you're offended by that kind of thing just treat the last chapter as an ending!

Cadvan let out a shuddering breath. Maerad’s lips trailed down his chest, passing over wiry coils of hair and silvery scars. Cadvan’s body was strong but much-abused – he liked to joke that in one year of travel with Maerad he had accumulated more scars than in his fifty years of travelling alone. At one stage in their explorations, when Maerad was becoming comfortable with Cadvan’s physicality, he had suggested a kind of examination. Maerad had shrunk – the idea that she would be so vulnerable before him seemed insupportable – but Cadvan had quickly clarified; an examination not of her, but of him. Maerad, curiosity aroused, had agreed and that evening found herself, fully-dressed, before an entirely nude Cadvan. He had disrobed before her, working from top to bottom in a slow, methodological manner that Maerad had found strangely hypnotising. And so he had stood before her, bare, cast in orange light by the fire on one side, blue from the moonlight on the other. His face was carefully blank, and he had looked with great concentration at a spot over Maerad’s head. Maerad had later learned that he was attempting to keep his body calm under her gaze, but at the time he merely looked as if he were considering which books from the Innail library might aid him in a conundrum. Maerad had shyly circled him, peeking at him with increasing boldness. Cadvan was constructed entirely of long, lean muscles – a body made for speed and movement rather than brute strength. He was not nearly so large as Saliman, but even standing still he possessed a certain strength of shape and proportion which pleased Maerad. His shoulders were broad and muscled from many decades of swordsmanship, his legs well-honed from horse-riding. His stomach was firm, padded with a comfortable layer of fat, well-earned from Innail cooking after a year of malnourishment. A thin, dark line of hair trailed from his bellybutton down, broadening as it went, until it met the mass between his legs. It had taken Maerad a long time to look there – instead, for a while she had looked anywhere else, watching the way his breath caused the muscles to tense and relax over his body, like a wave crashing against the shore. As distraction, she had picked out every beautiful imperfection; the scars that littered his body, the birthmarks and freckles. The more she looked, walking around and around him, the more she had felt the urge to do something. Should she say something? Perhaps tell him something favourable about his appearance – but Maerad, so choked with unfamiliar emotions, could think of nothing to say that would not sound foolish. And still Cadvan had not moved, nor spoken, nor even looked at her. She had circled around again, close enough that her robes brushed against him. Then, overcome by some instinct, she had touched a long, thin scar on his forearm, long-since healed. He jumped. 

“Where did you get this?” she had whispered. 

“A fight with mercenaries,” Cadvan replied. His eyes finally rested on her “near Hedh. They came upon me unexpectedly and cut a half inch into my arm before I could overpower them.” 

“ _Almarë este e, Aëlorgalen, Dhillarearën Edil-Amarandh na._ ” Maerad whispered, then kissed the scar. Cadvan inhaled sharply. The words she had spoken were those of blessing, typically spoken over new-born babies or married couples, only altered slightly. Where her lips had touched Cadvan felt a not unwelcome coldness, like cool water on a hot day; he sighed. Maerad, sensing she had done something right, had repeated the process across his entire body, asking about each scar and listening to the response before kissing and blessing it. Sometimes Cadvan’s explanations came with laughter – more often they came with much remembered pain. Maerad became lost in the ritual. It was inevitable that Cadvan’s concentration should falter – but his physical response to her ministrations did not scare her. At some point in her anointing his body had become not something to be feared or looked away from, but just flesh. It was neither beautiful nor ugly; it merely. . . was. Maerad had learnt an invaluable lesson that night. While her shyness over Cadvan’s and her own body had returned, and had taken much longer to dispel, she had learnt to trust her own instincts. 

Maerad allowed that instinct to take over her again. What fabric barred her way she cast aside, chasing the raised welts of wounds long healed across Cadvan’s body like they were navigational stars. Cadvan’s role was relegated to caresses – her shoulders, her throat, her hair. Maerad, her Knowing telling her to take special care dressing for dinner, had donned a becoming pale blue dress made of fine, heavy silk. Her raven hair, which had begun the evening wound around her head in plaits like a diadem, had fallen over the course of the night’s riotous celebration until it all but tumbled around her face. It was short work for Cadvan to take out what remained of the pins, setting it free in a great scraggly tumble down her back. His fingers toyed with the neckline of her dress.

“May I –”

“Yes.” Maerad said. She had a sly look about her. “Fair’s fair.” Cadvan thought of his cloak and shirt, which had joined Maerad’s cloak on the floor, and couldn’t help but agree. He gently turned her so that her back faced him, sweeping aside her hair so that he could begin the fiddly process of unbuttoning her dress. He worked quickly, knowing Maerad was uncomfortable in such a position. It had taken a long time for her to confess the details of her terrible nightmare to him, and she had been greatly relieved to find that people need not make love from behind, like horses or cows. She found it reassuring when she could see him. 

The dress fell to the floor with a muffled flap. The heat from the fire pressed against Maerad’s skin, echoing the heat she felt within her. Her palms felt damp; she rubbed them against her shift covertly. 

“This is pretty,” Cadvan murmured, stroking the undergarment. Such items were designed as an extra layer of warmth in the cold seasons, and as such typically adhered only to the demands of practicality. This one, however, was a recent gift from Silvia. Both practical and beautiful, it was the colour of fresh cream, with a low square-shaped neck and elbow-length sleeves embroidered with miniscule white lilies. The fabric was unfamiliar to Maerad, warm as wool but soft as water against her skin. 

“Thank you,” Maerad replied. Outside, the first patters of rain began to beat against the window. _Cadvan was right about the rain_ , Maerad thought, _and he was right about this, too_. Maerad looked into Cadvan’s eyes and found them dark. Something shifted, like the release of a lock. The space between them felt charged, as if with magery, or static before lightning. Cadvan’s fingers trailed along the bow-like curve of her collarbone until it disappeared under her sleeve. He opened his mouth, the asking tipped on his tongue, but it was not necessary. In one swift move Maerad slipped the fabric from her shoulders, and it fell unimpeded to pool at her feet. Cadvan took a step back. His heart was beating very fast. 

Maerad was feeling a mix of nervousness and excitement. Every inch of her skin felt flushed, like she was in a fever, but the look on Cadvan’s face made her feel. . . bold. Powerful. A question quivered on his lips. Maerad took his hand in her own and the question was forgotten. 

“Is this ok?” she asked. Cadvan felt like laughing. Cadvan had always made sure Maerad knew she was in control, that she had the power, and a part of that was making sure Maerad undressed last. This was entirely new.

“Yes.” He nodded with a grin. “But I –” his hands went to his trousers, but Maerad stopped him. A smile twitched at the corners of her lips. 

“All in good time,” she said. And, just when Cadvan thought that nothing else would surprise him, she took his hand and guided it to her breast. 

One of Cadvan’s greatest assets as a Bard and as a lover was his attentiveness – he was quiet often, and listened well, so learned much that was not told to him. So when he let his fingers dance around her nipple – when he grasped it between his knuckles and pinched slowly, firmly – he knew exactly the way her body would bristle, the sharp breath of pleasure she would draw. Such things, at least, remained within his prediction. 

However, that evening, it seemed, Maerad was feeling unpredictable. She allowed Cadvan his ministrations for a short while, throwing her head back obediently for his kisses – but soon she grasped one of his hands once more, guiding it down her stomach towards the mound of fur between her legs. She asked a question – Cadvan answered – and his fingers pressed into soft, wet folds of flesh. She gasped. As his fingers started gently moving, she clung to his chest, kissing whatever skin she could reach, holding his nipple in her teeth. 

“ _Aëlorgalen,_ ” she breathed, again and again. Dawnflower. Cadvan. He asked a question, but Maerad did not hear, preoccupied with the wonderful sensations radiating from the core of her physical being. Cadvan’s hand stilled. She blinked her eyes open. 

“Don’t stop,” she said. It sounded like a reprimand. “It felt so good.” 

“You did not hear me,” Cadvan’s tone, too, was mildly chastising “I said I think we should move to the bed.” 

Maerad glanced around as if suddenly realising where she was. They were still standing before the fire, surrounded by a sea of fabric. Maerad noted with sudden embarrassment that in order to reach between her legs Cadvan was hunched over at a rather awkward angle. 

“If we continue in this way I will have a stoop all of tomorrow.” Cadvan joked, noticing her blushes. “How will I explain it to the First Circle?” 

“With the same excuse you will give for your sleepless eyes.” Maerad said. Cadvan’s boyish grin flashed across his face and he let out his merry, sudden laugh. 

“How mischievous you are tonight! Ah, but I see in your eyes it is no fleeting thing; you know exactly what you are doing.” He said. They had shuffled their way to the bed, but Maerad pulled back from his arms. 

“Boots,” she mumbled and, after a rather graceless manoeuvre involving some hopping about, her boots thumped to the floor. Cadvan’s boots swiftly followed, knocking into Maerad’s some little distance away, and both were topped off by what remained of Cadvan’s clothing. On the bed, Cadvan and Maerad stretched out next to one another, face to face. This was where Maerad’s nervousness began to return. She was not scared of Cadvan, nor of his nudity, not any longer; nor did her nudity before him do much more than inspire excitement. But Maerad was very aware that, despite how far they had come since that first kiss at the Hollow Lands, they were still yet to take the final step. The sense of pressure Maerad felt in this was not shared by Cadvan. 

“An absence of that act does not lessen other physical acts of love,” Cadvan had reassured her repeatedly. It was after she had, yet again, quailed from taking that big step and was curled up in his arms, still trembling, fretting that she might never be ready. Cadvan was very firm with her. “Such great feeling cannot be restricted to merely one invasive act. When we touch one another in these intimate ways we express our love, and any expression of that love is beautiful. What matters most is that both parties are comfortable.” Maerad, desperate to redeem herself in her own eyes, had asked if there was anything aside from small touches and carefully-placed kisses she could do to please him. Cadvan had haltingly informed her of certain things she might do with her hands or – Cadvan had confessed in a rush – with her mouth to stimulate him in a similar way he did her without the need for a full joining. Her attempts proved a great success; under Cadvan’s guidance and with the assistance of some innate instinct, she had driven him to the brink of ecstasy. She would have whole-heartedly thrust him into frenzy but, looking extremely red in the face and more wild than she had thought possible, he had stopped her and would not give her a clear answer why no matter how much she asked. Nonetheless, the experience had given her the rush of confidence she needed. 

It was armed with this memory, and faith in her ability to bring pleasure, that Maerad reached across the bed to Cadvan and met him in a passionate kiss. Their bodies drew closer, legs tangling, and Cadvan’s hand reached once more beyond her navel. 

“Much better,” Maerad heard him murmur against her jaw. Cadvan’s hands pressed against her in a steady rhythm, a beat which her body gradually started to respond to. Like singing in an empty hall, the sensation echoed and reverberated through her body, growing stronger with each addition. Cadvan watched her body begin to move; her head tipped back on the pillow, eyelids fluttering; her kisses became increasingly lazy and distracted; she stared to gently wriggle, tiny undulating movements most pronounced in her hips; her hands made clutching movements where they rested on Cadvan’s forearm and in the bedsheets. All were signs that told Cadvan he was doing the right thing. 

Cadvan felt his own desire storming through his veins, like white fire. To see Maerad so splayed out before him, lost in her own bliss, was almost more than he could bear. He was consumed with a great desire to see her happy, to please her, to show her his love in any way she would accept – and for them to share in that love together. 

A sound drew him from his contemplations. Beneath him, Maerad’s breath was falling heavier and faster. Her cheeks, lips and nipples were flushed. Every now and again she let out a small cry – sometimes she said Cadvan’s name, but more often they were merely blind sounds of pleasure.

“Cadvan.” Maerad finally uttered, grabbing his arm firmly. She was looking directly at him with a slightly unfocussed gaze. “Do you think – now – you could – we could – ”

“No,” Cadvan said, slowing his caresses “no, my love. It can wait a little longer. Not yet. . .” Maerad accepted his response without argument and allowed herself to sink back into the waves of fuzzy pleasure. Both Cadvan and Silvia had explained to Maerad in detail what was truly involved in a joining, what had to happen, what might happen, and what the possible consequences might be. And although both Bards were experienced in such matters and neither was inherently timid, both struggled to explain with any clarity what Silvia referred to as the release. Both said that it was a moment of great ecstasy, that it took more skill to bring about in women than in men, and that in men it hailed the spurting of their seed. But when Maerad pressed for details – how precisely did it feel? What did ‘great ecstasy’ even mean? Where did it come from? Why was it more difficult to bring about in women? – Cadvan had delicately referred Maerad to Silvia, and Silvia had said slyly that the only useful answers would come from practical exploration. Several weeks later, quite unexpectedly, Maerad finally experienced what they meant first-hand. While she had her qualms about its terming – for, truly, it felt nothing at all like a release to her, but a kind of internal thundering, or being brushed on the inside with a feather of fire – she finally understood what they had meant by ‘great ecstasy’. 

“Cadvan.” Maerad’s hips were bucking. Her legs had started to shake. Her voice was a gasp. “ _Aëlorgalen ma!_ ” 

“Yes, my love,” Cadvan said in the Speech. “I know.” He watched her carefully as he moved his hand down and slipped one finger, then two, inside her. She was trembling all over – but not from fear. She did not show any signs of discomfort, only desire. 

“Cadvan,” she gasped again “please. I – I want us to join. I want it. Please.”

“You are sure?” Cadvan’s face was extremely calm. 

“Yes,” Maerad said “I am certain.” 

Cadvan disentangled his legs from hers, shifting to kneel at her knees. He had swiftly learned to allow Maerad open herself to him without any intervention – and, after a pause, Maerad shifted onto her back and parted her legs wide, her knees pointing to the ceiling like the walls of a mountain. Cadvan moved into that space, leaning over her with all his weight held on his elbows. He kissed his forehead against hers. 

“Place your hands on my hips,” he quietly commanded. She did as instructed. “You may wrap your legs around my hips too, if you desire. Ready?” 

“Yes,” Maerad’s voice was barely a whisper. Cadvan shifted his weight onto just one elbow, his other arm moving down to their hips. He touched Maerad first, gently stoking the fire that had been briefly abandoned there, until Maerad was sighing again. Then he moved his hand away. His eyes were fixed on her. Maerad could feel him move more against her, until his hips were wedged between her thighs and something hard rested at her opening. 

“I love you,” she whispered, grasping his face. His anxious eyes softened. 

“I love you too,” Cadvan said, and kissed her. As his lips pressed against hers, he slowly begun to press himself inside of her. Maerad’s fingers pressed harder into his flesh. She was focusing so hard on not making any noise at all that she held her breath altogether. Her eyes latched onto his face like it was a lifeline, repeating something he could not hear. 

The sensation was not painful – Maerad’s arousal at Cavdan’s hands was still thrumming strongly through her body, her folds swollen and slippery – but it was unfamiliar. Without realising, Maerad had gone extremely still. She looked like she was focussing very hard. She felt him inside of her – felt herself stretching – his hips becoming closer and closer to meeting hers. Cadvan, too, was concentrating hard, being sure to move slowly, to ignore how good being inside her felt. Nothing but the sound of their breaths and the fire filled the silence in the room. Finally, Cadvan let out a shuddering breath. 

“We did it!” he laughed, stroking Maerad’s face and kissing her. “Now: allow yourself to get used to the feel of me. Take as long as you need. I can keep touching you if you like – it might help you get comfortable. When you’re ready – if you’re ready – for movement you can direct my hips with your hands.” 

“I think I’d like you to touch me.” Maerad said. Cadvan did so. Maerad groaned. She could feel the thunder in the distance, fuzzing at her toes and the tips of her fingers. Cadvan was, she thought, so very _good_ at that. . .

“Maerad,” Cadvan said, sounding strained. Maerad opened her eyes, not realising she had closed them “Maerad, I beg, unless it is intentional, please still your hips. You are making this extremely difficult for me.”

“Difficult?” Maerad said “How?” 

“How?” Cadvan laughed weakly “Maerad, I am buried deep within the woman I love more than the Light itself, a woman who is producing such unearthly noises as to make any man lose his head. And when you move your hips like that. . .” he trailed off weakly. “Maerad, every man has his limits. I fear I am reaching mine.” Maerad realised Cadvan’s entire body was trembling. She had been so caught up in her pleasure that she hadn’t realised the strain Cadvan was under. His eyes begged at her. 

“Bring me to thunder, Cadvan.” Maerad whispered. “And I will for you.” And with that, she started rolling her hips steadily. Cadvan matched her pace – agonisingly, deliciously slow – and they begun to pulse together. Their breath mingled in the air between them, and they spoke in nothing more than gasps and grunts. Maerad wondered how she had thought this felt strange – there seemed nothing more natural in the world than this unity with Cadvan. Her body hummed with energy from his earlier touches. She felt the familiar tension in her core, a moment’s forewarning, and on instinct reached her mind out to touch his, sharing with him everything she felt. She heard Cadvan call out – before she tipped over and could do nothing but lie suspended in blissful, shuddering noiselessness while her insides were enfolded in hot, sweet fire. 

When Maerad had connected their minds, Cadvan lost all semblance of restraint, and within moments joined her. Where Maerad’s climax was borne out with worshipful, near-breathless silence, Cadvan’s was far more bestial; with a growl he plunged himself deep into her once, twice, three times, then stayed there, tremoring, until the pleasure drained from his limbs, taking his strength with it. As if through a haze, Maerad watched in fascination as the blood rose to the surface of his skin, covering his chest and cheeks in red splodges, then receded again as if it had never been there. 

Together, they lay still for some interminable time; then, rousing himself, Cadvan slid from between her legs and drew her tightly into his embrace. Maerad settled closer to Cadvan, feeling his arms resting around her; arms that did not cage or crush or hurt, but which supported, protected, and nurtured. For a long while they lay like that, tangled, allowing the sweat on their bodies to dry. Cadvan seemed almost lethargic, exerting himself only enough to run a handkerchief over them both and apply a few lazy kisses to Maerad’s shoulders. Maerad, on the other hand, had never felt more alive. She felt like her limbs still hummed with fire and imagined she could still feel Cadvan’s touch between her legs. A grin that refused to fade split her face from ear to ear. While Cadvan recovered, she switched between observing him in a rare moment of powerlessness and gazing out the window, where the rainfall had cleared the sky enough to see the beginnings of a purple-pink dawn. And there, just about visible, was Ilion winking down upon the earth. 

_I do not need your comfort today, old friend_ , Maerad thought serenely, _today, at least, I have all I need within my grasp._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we have it! To do justice to the themes throughout this story i tried to draw from my own experience as much as possible - this goes for the early chapters as well as these later ones. While the focus was on Maerad's own development and past trauma, i didn't want Cadvan to just be the penis in the situation - hence a little character development with him, too. Hope you all enjoyed! 
> 
> Re. Cadvan's Truename - Casea Major over on fanfiction wrote a fic called 'Much Was Said' in which she uses 'Aëlorgalen' (Dawnflower, a blue star-shaped flower that grows in Northern Annar, mentioned by name in one of the early chapters of The Gift/The Naming just after Maerad and Cadvan escape Gilman's Cot) and it made SO much sense and fit SO perfectly that i'm convinced they're correct. So, Casea Major, if you're out there, that one's for you.


End file.
